Size grader for easily bruised articles



May 30, 1967 R. F. FOX 3,322,274

SIZE GRADER FOR EASILY BRUISED ARTICLES Filed June 28, 1965 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 I I9 ies 68 Q Q [6 e2 64 I663 7 H 46 5 45 e5 30 26 E Q G! g 24 6l- \V 2 4 I 14 M 1 q l s2 25 I 55 3| as 25 2 22 i g INVENTOR.

REED F. FOX da 01m ATTORNEYS May 30, 1967 R. F. FOX

SIZE GRADER FOR EASILY BRUISED ARTICLES 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed June 28, 1965 INVENTOR REED F. FOX

ATTORNEYS United States Patent Ofiiice Patented fflay 30, 1967 3,322,274 SIZE GRADER F912 EASILY BRUISED ARTICLES Reed F. For, Bryan, Ghio, assignor to Fox Bros. Mfg, Bryan, Ohio, a partnership Fiied June 28, 1965, Ser. No. 467,507 10 Claims. (Cl. 2(l9-86) This invention relates to a size grader for articles capable of being carried in suspension by a moving stream of water and is more particularly adapted for use in conjunction with easily bruised or injured articles, such as whole tomatoes which require delicate handling.

One of the principal objects of the invention is to provide such a size grader which is rapid, accurate and of high capacity.

Another object is to effect size grading with a minimum injury to the articles being graded so that it is adapted for size grading very delicate articles, such as whole tomatoes.

Another object is to provide such a size grader which is adapted to in line inclusion with companion equipment.

Another object is to provide such a size grader in which the articles will not become permanently wedged in the grading apertures and hence blind these apertures.

Another object is to provide such a size grader in which the parts can be easily individually replaced.

Another object is to provide such a size grader which is easily adapted to any special requirements of a customer.

Another object is to provide a size grader in which the grade size of the articles can be altered.

Another aim is to provide such a grader which is low in initial and operating cost and which will stand up under conditions of severe and constant operation without getting out of order or requiring repairs.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following specification and drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a top plan elevation of a tomato size grader embodying the invention and showing in dot-dash lines the conveyer belt for removing the graded product.

FIG. 2 is a front elevation thereof with parts broken away.

FIG. 3 is a vertical section taken generally on line 3-3, FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged vertical section taken generally on line 4-4, FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged view similar to FIG. 3 through one side of the grading reel and showing the manner in which its members are connected together.

FIG. 6 is a vertical section taken generally on line 6-6, FIG. 5.

The size grader of the present invention is illustrated as being in the form of tomato size grader to separate undersize tomatoes 10 from the grade size, tomatoes 10a and 1212, the grade size tomatoes 10a being smaller than the grade size tomatoes 10b and being handled slightly differently as hereinafter described. However, the size grader is applicable, of course, to other articles, particularly to articles which are easily bruised or injured and should be handled gently.

The numeral 11 represents an open top tank supported on standards or legs 12 and having a bottom Wall 13, identical side walls 14, a front wall 15 and a rear wall composed of end sections 16 which converge rearwardly toward each other to a trough-shaped reject discharge or outlet 19 the bottom of which forms a continuation of the bottom wall 13. This floor level outlet 19 discharges into an outlet flume 20. A body 21 of flowing water is maintained in the tank 11 by the volume of the return pump (not shown), this body 21 draining out of the tank when the return pump is shut down. After the smaller than grade size tomatoes 111 have been separated, the water from the outlet flume 21) can be returned by the return pump (not shown) to an inlet flume 22 discharging into a trough-shaped inlet 23 in the front wall 15 of the tank 11. This inlet trough is preferably generally in line, particularly in a vertical plane, with the troughshaped reject discharge or outlet 19 to facilitate in line connection with preceding and succeeding apparatus (not shown) and these inlet and outlet troughs can be pitched to conform to the desired flow of tomatoes, in suspension in water, through the size grader. Preferably the top edge of the tank 11 and its trough-shaped inlet and outlet are provided with an angle iron rim 24.

The size grading is done by a drum-like reel indicated generally at 25 mounted to be partly submerged in the head or body 21 of water in the tank 11 to rotate about a generally horizontal axis which in a vertical plane is in line with the inlet 22 and reject discharge or outlet 19. For this purpose the tank 11 is provided with a horizontal cross bar 26 parallel with the front wall 15 and cross connecting the rim 24 at the rearwardly converging side sections 16 of the rear wall. Bearings 28 on this cross bar 26 and on the rim 24 above the troughshaped outlet 21) carry a shaft 29 fixed to and protruding coaxially rearwardly from the reel rear end head 30 which is in the form of a vertical imperforate disk. The opposite or front end head 31 of the reel 25 is in the form of a vertical sheet metal ring 31 providing a large concentric inlet opening 32 to the interior of the reel 25. The periphery of the drum-like reel is composed of spaced members providing a face having openings permitting the passage of the smaller than grade size tomatoes 119 but blocking the passage of the grade size tomatoes 1M and 1012. These spaced members are shown as being parallel tubular rods 35 in spaced cylindrical arrangement about the axis of the reel and fixed at their ends to the end heads 31 and 31 of the reel. For this purpose these tubular rods 35 are internally threaded at their opposite ends and abut the opposing faces of the end heads 30, 31 in line with an annular series of screw holes in each end head. A screw 36 is screwed through each of these screw holes into the adjacent internally threaded end of its tubular rod 35 with its head bearing against the outside face of its end head so that the end heads 30, 31 and the annular series of these tubular cross rods 35 provide a rigid squirrel cage reel support by the shaft 29.

To release tomatoes 10a which become wedged in the spaces between the tubular rods 35, each of these tubular rods is preferably contained in a cylindrical sleeve 37 which is loosely fitted thereon to be freely rotatable. The spaces between these sleeves 37 is indicated at 38 and determine the size of the tomatoes 10 which are permitted to pass through the reel 25. It is obvious that by selecting sleeves 37 of different diameters, or using one sleeve over another, the size of the spaces 38 and hence the grade size of the retained tomatoes 10a and 1% can be varied.

Additionally the reel includes a second series of tubular rods 40 connecting the end heads 30, 31 and also in cylindrical arrangement concentric with the axis of the reel 25. These tubular rods 40 are secured to these end heads 30, 31 in the same manner as the tubular rods 35, namely by being arranged in end abutting relation to th opposing faces of these end heads and being provided with internally threaded ends anchoring screws 41 through screw holes in the end heads and the heads of these screws being against the outer faces of these end heads 30, 31. Each of these tubular rods 40 also carries a loose and freely rotatable sleeve 42. The sleeves 37 and 42 are, of course, slightly shorter, as shown than the 3 space between the front and rear end heads 30, 31 of the reel 25 to permit free rotation of these sleevs.

The cylinder formed by this second series of tubular rods 40 and their loose sleeves 42 is smaller than the cylinder formed by the rods 35 and their loose sleeves 3'7, and the spaces 43 between the loose sleeves 37 on the tubular rods 35 and the loose sleeves 42 on the tubular rods 40 is preferably approximately equal to the spaces 38 separating the loose sleeves 37 from one another. The spaces 44 separating the loose sleeves 42 on the tubular rods 40 from one another are uniform and substantially larger than the spaces 38 and 43.

The reel 25 can be rotated in any suitable manner, as by a pulley 45 fixed to its stub shaft 29 connected by a belt 46 with any suitable drive means (not shown).

The size grader also includes a stationary graded product discharge chute 55 mounted on the front wall 15, across the trough-shaped inlet 23 to project through the inlet opening 32 into the reel 25 toward its rear end head 30. A bracket 56 is shown as supporting the end of the chute 55 adjacent the reel end head 30. This graded product discharge chute extends under substantially the entire length of the top segment of the reel 25 to catch the grade size tomatoes ltla and b falling from this top segment of the reel and slopes downwardly out through the opening 32 to discharge onto the top stretch of a horizontal conveyor belt 58 traveling across the trough-shaped inlet 23 parallel with the front wall of the tank 11. Since this conveyer belt forms no part of the present invention it has been shown in dot-dash lines.

The bottom part of the reel is submerged in the body or head 21 of water in the tank 11 and an important feature of the invention resides in blanking off the submerged descending segment of the reel 25 so that the tomatoes are driven against the submerged ascending segment of the reel. To this end, the reel is shown as rotating counterclockwise as shown in FIG. 4 so that its descending submerged segment is at the left. To blank this descending submerged segment off, an arcuate fixed bathe 60 is mounted in the tank 11 across the entire exterior face of this descending submerged segment of the reel 25 and can rest at its bottom against the bottom 13 of the tank 11 and is shown as fixed at its top to a horizontal bar 61 removably secured, as by bolts 62, to the top flange 24 of the front wall 15 and the cross bar 26. Bolt holes 63 are provided on the opposite side of the reel 25 in this cross bar 26 and top flange 24 of the front wall 15 so that if a customer desires the reel 25 to rotate in the opposite direction, the arcuate cylindrical baffie 60 can be moved to the other side of the reel, which would then be its rising side. The smaller than grade size tomatoes are guided directly to the reject product discharge 19 by a vertical baffle 64, one vertical edge 65 of which is arranged along the rising side of the end head 30 and the other vertical edge 66 of which is close to the opposite side of the reject discharge 19 so as to provide a passage 68 leading directly to the discharge from the tank 11 at the rising side of the reel 25. This avoids tomatoes getting caught in pockets in the tank 11 and the baffle 64 preferably can be mounted to be generally parallel with either of the rearwardly converging portions 16 of the rear wall depending upon which way the reel 25 is rotated.

The tomatoes 10, 10a and 10b to 'be graded are fiumed to the size grader through the flume 22 to the U-shaped inlet 23 of the size grader. The moving stream of water flowing through the flume 22 carries the tomatoes in suspension and from the inlet 23 this stream discharges as a waterfall through the opening 32 in the reel end head 31 into the reel 25. The falling stream of water carries the tomatoes to the spaces 38 between the loose sleeves 37 carried by the outer cylinder of rods 35 of the reel. This is achieved by virtue of the fact that the end head 30 of the reel is in the form of an imperforate disk. Further the stream of water bearing the tomatoes in suspension is diverted to the openings 38 at the rising side of the reel 25. This is effected by the arcuate fixed baffle 60 which blinds off the descending submerged side of the reel 25.

The tomatoes 10 smaller than grade size pass through the spaces 38 with the fiume water, or pass through these openings and fall back into the flume water, and are conveyed on with the flume water to flow around through the passage 68 provided by the baffle 64 at the rear side of the imperforate reel end head 30. From there the tomatoes and stream of flume water are guided to the reject discharge 19 and pass on through an outlet fiume 20 to the tomato products lines (not shown).

Tomatoes larger than the spaces 38 are shown as being of two classes, namely, the tomatoes 10a which are only slightly larger than the spaces and the tomatoes 1012 which are of substantially larger size. The reel is rotating in the direction of the arrow associated with FIG. 4. The tomatoes Mia of a size only slightly larger than the spaces 38 and 4-3 can be driven art way through these spaces on the submerged rising side of the reel 25 and can became wedged in these spaces. Accordingly the tomatoes are carried upwardly, usualy with the support of the sleeves 42, by the rising side of the reel until they pass beyond about a 2 oclock position as viewed in FIG. 4. The substantial weight of each tomato now tends to pull itself out of the space 38 in which it is wedged and this pulling out tendency is not resisted to a great degree due to the fact that the tomato is wedged between a pair of loosely rotatable sleeves 3'7, 37 on the corresponding pair of rods 35 which loose sleeves rotate to permit the tomato to fall out of its space 38 or 43. In so falling out the tomato is guided by the sleeves 42 loosely fitted on the inner cylinder of tubular rods 40 so as to roll out through the spaces 44 down onto the fixed graded product inclined discharge chute 55. The tomatoes 10a roll down this chute, out through the opening 32 in the end head 31, and onto the upper stretch of an endless conveyer belt 58 which conducts the tomatoes for further processing, as by a coring machine (not shown).

The still larger size tomatoes 10b are carried in suspension by the water introduced into the reel 25 against the rising side of thi reel 25, but are too large to become wedged in the spaces 38. Instead, these larger tomatoes 10b are caught between the sleeves 42 and 37 loosely fitted, respectively, on the rods 40 and 35 of the inner and outer cylinders of these rods, these larger sized tomatoes 1% being too large to fall through the spaces 43 between these inner and outer cylinders of loosely sleeved rods 49, 35 since these spaces 43 are approximately equal in size to the spaces 38. These tomatoes 10b are therefore carried up the rising side of the reel 25 supported by the loose sleeves 4-2, 37 on inner and outer cylinder of rods 40, 35 until they pass beyond approximately the 2 oclock position of the reel as viewed in FIG. 4 when they roll out of the spaces 44 onto the graded product inclined discharge chute 55 on which they roll out through the opening 32 in the end head 31 of the reel onto the upper stretch of the endless conveyer belt 58.

If the customers requirements are better served with the reel 25 rotating in the opposite direction from that shown, the arcuate baffie 60' and plate 64 guiding the less than grade size tomatoes 10- into the reject discharge 19 can easily be reversed in position.

Further the reel rods 35 and 40 are preferably tubular and internally threaded at their ends and'are individually secured to the reel end heads 30 and 31 by screws 36, 41 so that they can be individually replaced, if required, without removing any of the other rods 35, 40.

It will be seen that the present invention provides a very rigid and at the same time gentle apparatus for size grading tomatoes or other delicate articles to an exact minimum size and accomplishes the various objectives and has the various advantages initially set forth.

What is claimed is:

1. A size grader for articles comprising spaced members forming the peripheral face of a drum-shaped reel rotatable coaxially about a generally horizontal axis and providing a face having openings permitting the passage of smaller than grade size articles but blocking the passage of grade size articles, means conducting a moving stream of water carrying said articles in suspension into said reel through an opening in one end head of said reel and thence against said face whereby said smaller than grade size articles are carried by the water stream through said openings and said grade size articles are brought into pressure contact with said spaced members, and means continuously removing said grade size articles from said face, the other end head of said reel being substantially imperforate and being supported by a generally concentric external shaft and bearing.

2. A size grader for articles comprising spaced members in the form of generally parallel rods in generally cylindrical arrangement forming the peripheral face of a drum-shaped reel rotatable coaxially about a generally horizontal axis and providing a face having openings permitting the passage of smaller than grade size articles but blocking the passage of grade size articles, means conducting a moving stream of water carrying said articles in suspension against said face whereby said smaller than grade size articles are carried by the water stream through said openings and said grade size articles are brought into pressure contact with said spaced members, and means continuously removing said grade size articles from said face, said reel additionally including a second set of rods in generally cylindrical arrangement arranged generally coaxially of said axis in spaced relation from said first mentioned rods toward said axis, said second set of rods being spaced a greater distance from one another than said first mentioned rods.

3. A size grader as set forth in claim 2 wherein each of said second series of rods carries a freely rotatable sleeve.

4. A size grader as set forth in claim 2 wherein the space between the cylinders formed by such two sets of rods is appnroximately equal to the spacing from one another of the first mentioned rods.

5. A size grader for articles comprising spaced members in the form of generally parallel rods in generally cylindrical arrangement forming the peripheral face of a drum-shaped reel rotatable coaxially about a generally horizontal axis and providing a face having openings permitting the passage of smaller than grade size articles but blocking the passage of grade size articles, means conducting .a moving stream of water carrying said articles in suspension against said face whereby said smaller than grade size articles are carried by the water stream through said openings and said grader size articles are brought into pressure contact with said spaced members, means continuously removing the grade size articles from said face, and loosely rotatable sleeves severally surrounding said rods.

6. A size grader for articles comprising spaced members forming the peripheral face of a drum-shaped reel rotatable coaxially about a generally horizontal axis and providing a face having openings permitting the passage of smaller than grade size articles but blocking the passage of grade size articles, means conducting a moving stream of water carrying said articles in suspension into said reel through an opening in one end head of said reel and thence against said face whereby said smaller than grade size articles are carried by the water stream through said openings and said grade size articles are brought into pressure contact with said spaced members, and means continuously removing said grade size articles from said face, comprising a stationary shelf projecting through said opening into said reel below substantially the entire length of the top segment thereof to catch such grade size articles falling from the top segment of said reel.

7. A size grader for articles comprising a tank having a reject discharge for a stream of water containing smaller than grade size articles and said stream forming a head of water in said tank, spaced members forming the peripheral face of a drum-shaped reel rotatable in said tank coaxially about a general-1y horizontal axis with its lower part submerged in said head of water and providing a face having openings permitting the passage of smaller than grade size articles but blocking the passage of grade size articles, means conducting a moving stream of water carrying said articles in suspension into said reel and thence against said face whereby said smaller than grade size articles are carried by the water stream through said openings and said grade size articles are brought into pressure contact with said spaced members, and means continuous-1y removing said grade size articles from said face, said reject discharge being generally in line, in a vertical plane, with such means conducting water and articles in suspension into said drum-shaped reel.

8. A size grader as set forth in claim 7 wherein such Water and article conducting means discharges into said reel through an opening in one end head thereof and additionally including a fixed baffle blanking off a part of the submerged peripheral face of the reel thereby to restrict the grading action to a limited part of said submerged peripheral face.

9. A size grader as set forth in claim 8 wherein said limited part of said submerged peripheral face is substantially the entire descending submerged peripheral face of the reel.

10. A size grader for easily bruised globular articles, comprising uniformly spaced members providing a wall having openings permitting the passage of smaller than grade size articles but slightly smaller than grade size articles, means conducting a moving stream of water carrying said articles in suspension through said wall at such velocity as to cause grade size articles suspended therein to become wedged in said openings, means elevating said walls to lift said wedged in grade size articles above said stream of water and to cause said wedged in articles to fall from said wall and means for catching such fallen articles.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,109,099 9/1914 Williams 209- X 2,984,351 5/1961 Van Slyck et a1. 20998 3,153,484 10/1964 Heiny 209--86 3,251,466 5/ 1966 Fleishman 2.0999

FOREIGN PATENTS 74,698 2/1949 Norway.

M. HENSON WOOD, JR., Primary Examiner. ALLEN N. KNOWLES, Examiner. 

10. A SIZE GRADER FOR EASILY BRUISED GLOBULAR ARTICLES COMPRISING UNIFORMLY SPACED MEMBERS PROVIDING A WALL HAVING OPENINGS PERMITTING THE PASSAGE OF SMALLER THAN GRADE SIZE ARTICLES BUT SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN GRADE SIZE ARTICLES, MEANS CONDUCTING A MOVING STREAM OF WATER CARRYING SAID ARTICLES IN SUSPENSION THROUGH SAID WALL AT SUCH VELOCITY AS TO CAUSE GRADE SIZE ARTICLES SUSPENDED THEREIN TO BECOME WEDGED IN SAID OPENINGS, MEANS ELEVATING SAID WALLS TO LIFT SAID WEDGE IN GRADE SIZE ARTICLE ABOVE SAID STREAM OF WATER AND TO CAUSE SAID WEDGED IN ARTICLES TO FALL FROM SAID WALL AND MEANS FOR CATCHING SUCH FALLEN ARTICLES. 